


My crown is called content, a crown that seldom kings enjoy

by TheLionInMyBed



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Bad Puns, Hope, Hopeful Ending, Jam, M/M, Maedhros is a slut for military resources, Optimism, What's That?, dramatic irony?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-15
Updated: 2017-01-15
Packaged: 2018-09-17 13:28:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9326798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLionInMyBed/pseuds/TheLionInMyBed
Summary: Fingon and Maedhros plan a battle and all the things that could come after.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Таким венцом король владеет редкий](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10753872) by [rio_abajo_rio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rio_abajo_rio/pseuds/rio_abajo_rio)



> Thanks to June for the beta!

When had he started sleeping with a sword beside his bed? Fingon did not remember, knew only that when he woke to a rough hand on his shoulder and a rougher voice hissing his name, the blade was in his hand before he had even won free of his blankets.

Maedhros, above him, smiled despite the naked steel pressed to his throat. “Fingon, did you hear?”

“What are you doing here?” Fingon said groggily. Maedhros did not visit unannounced unless-

Suddenly he was very much awake. “Who this time?”

“No one! _She did it_ , Fingon.”

“What? Who?”

“Doriath’s princess.” Pushing the sword aside, Maedhros drew Fingon up from his cocoon of blankets and into his arms. “They say she danced for him. _Danced!_ Now why did we not think of that?”

“Are you drunk?” His eyes were overbright but liquor never made Maedhros jolly and he did not smell of wine but horse sweat and the clean winds that blew across Hithlum’s plains. In the predawn light, his short hair was tousled with hard riding.

Maedhros’ prosthetic was hard against Fingon’s spine as he dipped him to the floor in what Fingon’s sleep-fogged mind placed as an ancient waltz, one they’d not danced together in five centuries.

“Stop,” he said and Maedhros released him so abruptly Fingon had to catch himself on the nightstand to keep from going sprawling. “Tell me what’s happened. Please.”

“I’m sorry,” Maedhros said. His face smoothed out into the calm mask it was his habit to don but it kept cracking, his mouth twitching back into a smile, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “You will forgive me the rude awakening when you hear though, and must dismiss your spymaster for not getting you word sooner! Lúthien - and her swain, and Huan too - have snatched a silmaril from Morgoth’s crown.”

“I had heard rumours but I did not credit them.”

“They’re true. All true! Well, perhaps not the one calling her a vampire, but as to the rest I am certain. Is that news not worth rising before Arien?”

It _was_ good news, the best they had received in years and even were Maedhros’ joy not contagious, still Fingon’s heart would have leapt. He let Maedhros bear him up, strong arms about him, voice the warm, sure rasp of a cat’s purr. “If she did do as you say-”

“ _Yes_. Five centuries in which my dearest hope was that my life and death might inconvenience him, but we can do so much more than that. We could win, Fingon.”

‘Fair shall the end be, though long and hard shall be the road!’ whispered an echo of a different voice. The son was not the father, none knew that better than Fingon, and yet… “My father thought to take the fight to Morgoth. I will not let him have you too.”

“And I’d so missed his company,” Maedhros said, because he could never seem to help himself. He stepped in close to Fingon again and added more softly, “I know you won’t. Your father faced him alone, despairing. If I- if _we_ act, it will be together, and in hope.”

A king must carry the hopes of all his people, and so Fingon had. It would be good, though, not to hope alone. The tiles were cool beneath his bare feet as he began to pace. “Avenge our fathers and grandfather. Our cousins, my brother, all the people that have suffered and died beneath Morgoth’s yoke.”

Maedhros nudged Fingon’s sheepskin slippers out from beneath the bed and then looked at them pointedly until Fingon had put them on. “Don’t think only of the dead. We can free all the thralls in Angband.”

“And have you free of your Oath in the bargain.” Free of his father’s bitter legacy, free to be Fingon’s wholly and unconditionally. It was Maedhros that moved first but when he brought their mouths together Fingon returned the kiss with no less ardour.

Hands, flesh and steel, came to rest upon his hips and then dropped lower, sliding beneath his nightshirt. Shadows of previous encounters flickered behind Fingon’s eyes: up against a wall or pressed into the mattress, rough and desperate, Maedhros still in his riding leathers.

But Maedhros only kissed him and kept kissing him, no urgency in the movement of his lips and tongue, in the press of the hand cupping Fingon’s arse, as though they had all the time in the world. Maybe now they did.

When they lay together it was always in silence but for their gasps, Fingon closing his teeth against the babbled endearments that threatened to spill from his lips. He’d thought that Maedhros never felt that same urge but, “I love you,” he said now, drawing Fingon down onto the bed. “I love you,” he said, as Fingon helped him out of his clothes so that they might lie skin to skin. “I love you,” he said, moving against Fingon slow and careful, everything they never dared to be. “You’ve been so strong, I know you have, and I will see your hopes rewarded, everything that you deserve, _Ah_ , Fingon-”

They lay together afterwards, watching the light grow in the east. Despite his name, Maedhros’ hair usually seemed more brown than red but Arien’s dawn always showed the truth of it. Her flames smelted the strands of copper from the baser metals and set them glowing. The fire within him burnt brighter still, more fiercely than Fingon had ever seen it, despite the softness of his eyes.

Fingon had always been freer with his affection but he felt shy now, as he had not since his youth, and so, instead of offering promises of his own, said, “What happened to my slipper?”

“Ah, I wondered what-” Maedhros sat up a little and drew it out from beneath him, and then leant forwards so that he might fit it back to Fingon’s foot and press a quick kiss to his ankle.

Fingon laughed and squirmed. “Well done. But solve a greater mystery for me; how did you get past the guards?”

“Those on the outer gates did not hinder me because they feared to offer insult to the Warden of the Eastern Marches,” Maedhros said and then let his face grow cold and stern, his eyes a fierce white flame burning amidst the ruin of his beauty. “And because I’m terrifying. Those within your keep let me pass because they know what my visits mean to you. The tactful ones hoped I might provide you some relief from the burden of command.”

“And the less tactful?”

“Hoped that I enjoyed my ride.” Dropping the act, if act it was, Maedhros stretched and then snuggled closer, curling about Fingon with catlike satisfaction.

His breath was warm on Fingon’s neck, ticklish but Fingon revelled in the sensation. “I’ll talk to Ýreth.”

“I named no names.” Maedhros kissed the sensitive spot and then transferred his attention to Fingon’s ear. “Though I wish she wouldn’t leer at me like that.”

“She leers at everyone like tha- Watch your teeth!”

Maedhros chuckled and bit more gently. “Keep her far down the battle lines from me.”

“It is to be war then?” Feeling it a little beneath their dignity to have this conversation while his Marchwarden sucked his ear, Fingon tried to sit.

After his third unsuccessful attempt, Maedhros took pity and let him up with unmasked reluctance. “It’s been war since our grandfather’s murder. But war, now, with an end to it in sight. One last campaign.”

A campaign in which they  _fought_ rather than retreated over their poisoned fields and murdered friends. “Who will come?”

Since he could no longer reach his ear, Maedhros turned his attention to Fingon’s belly and began kissing his way downwards. “You, again, if you can promise me your cavalry.”

“You drive a hard bargain.” It was not easy to think with Maedhros’ mouth on him like that but their list of potential allies was not long. “Azaghâl?”

“Was not interested.” Sharp teeth scraped Fingon’s hip. “She said to come back when I could grow a proper beard but that, according to Grandfather Mahtan, won’t be for another few thousand years. I told her so and she said she could not wait that long.”

Fingon hit him with a pillow. “Churl. Will she _fight_ with us?”

“Oh yes. She’ll grumble about it and demand outrageous bribes but she’s no fool. ‘We stand together or fall apart,’ she said when I saved her life. Probably so I’d not expect too great a reward but I intend to hold her to it.”

There was parchment upon his desk, ink and quills, and Fingon struggled free of the arresting covers and his arresting lover to reach them. “The Edain have ever been loyal allies to us. I’ll muster what I can - say thirty thousand at the least.”

Although he stretched out into the space Fingon had vacated in a sprawl too picturesque not to be affected, Maedhros said quite seriously; “I have near that many Easterlings that will fight and, with some training, fight well. I’d hoped to arrange some intermarriages with those of the Edain left in my lands, to see what manner of soldier might result but I fear, fast as they mature, there won’t be time.”

Making a tally, Fingon said, “Círdan will answer my call.”

“Good. Your brother?”

The question was asked gently but that made it hurt no less. “Is alive,” Fingon said. “I know no more than that and have no way to reach him. What of Doriath?”

Maedhros leant over the side of the bed and caught up his breeches, pulling them on with an efficiency Fingon found a little disappointing. “If you’re the one that pens the message-”

“Then Thingol might have the courtesy to veil his insults. It was only our uncle’s children that he ever condescended to speak civilly to and they are dead.”

“Dead or no more kindly disposed towards us than Thingol.” Pausing in the lacing of his shirt, Maedhros raised a hand in surrender. “I know.”

“I am Orodreth’s liege lord. If I asked it, he would have to come.” Fingon had been a prince among princes all his life but he had been a king only a dozen years and, while command was very natural, giving orders to his cousins still sat oddly.

“Would he? Unless Morgoth lends us some of his war weasels I don’t see how we’ll ferret him out of his burrow.”

“He swore his fealty to me,” Fingon said. And then, uncomfortably, “As to swearing-”

Maedhros fumbled the lacings again and his shirt fell open, baring his chest. “Fingon-”

Few things annoyed Maedhros more than being seen to struggle with simple tasks and so Fingon looked away. “To be sure we shall win back the jewels that Morgoth stole, but what of the third?”

“Lúthien did what we could not and I wish her joy of it. The Oath was always meant as a rallying cry against Morgoth. Once we have his two it might be content to sleep.”

That naivety was as unlike him as his joy had been. “And if it is not?”

“We negotiate.” Cloth rustled and Fingon heard him sigh in frustration. “Which we will be better placed to do when we have no Dark Lord breathing down our necks.”

“Thingol is far too stubborn to be moved, even had your brothers not offered fresh insult.”

“I thought what they did to Finrod was the height of their foolishness and malice,” Maedhros said. “But I was wrong. Still, a silmaril beyond our reach in Doriath leaves us no worse off than when all three shone in Morgoth’s crown.”

Fingon looked up from his growing list of allies and supplies, to see Maedhros fully dressed and smiling at him. There was nothing unusual about that smile - it was the same careful, cutting look he always wore, as much a piece of armour as his mail - but it had never seemed quite so false before. Not with that breathless happiness to compare it to. “You’re right,” Fingon said, unsure how to restore it. “I’m sure you’ve thought it through already. Will you break your fast with me? The kitchens will be awake now and you said you’d ridden hard.”

“In all senses of the word. Breakfast would be welcome.”

As boys, or even a hundred years ago, they might have stolen into the pantry, laughing and shushing each other, and helped themselves to food. But what people called charming brashness in a prince was embarrassing in a king, and so Fingon spoke politely to the cooks, admiring their industriousness and the warm smell of baking bread rising from the ovens.

It took only a little wheedling to win one of the first loaves, still hot enough he had to juggle it from hand to hand. When Fingon looked around for approval, Maedhros rolled his eyes and continued complementing Aewon’s raspberry preserves.

“You never said before, my lord. If you like them so, I can pass the recipe on to your own cook,” said Aewon which was a concession indeed.

“Don’t you dare,” Fingon said. “If you did then he’d have no reason to visit.”

The servants laughed at that and exchanged knowing looks as Fingon ushered his cousin over to the hearth to eat, far away enough so as not to disturb their gossip.

“So,” said Maedhros, sober and practical. “My own folk are well enough equipped as, I’m sure, are yours, but to arm and armour the Secondborn ourselves would take too long. The dwarves will charge ruinously but-”

“This can wait until after breakfast,” Fingon said.

The cooks knew their art; the bread was crusty without and pillow-soft within, a sourdough that paired beautifully with the sugary, stickiness of the jam. Fingon had eaten two slices before Maedhros moved the jar out of his reach, ostensibly to preserve Fingon’s figure. Since Maedhros now had the spoon in his mouth, that wasn’t a very believable claim and Fingon was considering stealing it back when it occurred to him. “You _wouldn’t_ need to visit.”

“I would, alas,” Maedhros said, indistinctly because he had not removed the spoon. “Himring doesn’t have the climate for raspberries.”

“You wouldn’t need to be in Himring.”

“I can’t spare-” He stopped. This time Fingon was watching for the cracks and saw the incredulity, not quite masked.

“Did that truly not occur to you?” Fingon plucked the spoon from Maedhros’ mouth before it could fall and scooped more jam onto his overladen bread.

“Even if all goes as we hope, the war will not end quickly. You will still need me to hold the north,” Maedhros said, though his eyes were distant, looking to a future that he had not, if Fingon knew him, thought to consider. “Though, once Morgoth’s power is broken, Maglor and Caranthir might-” He broke off. “It’s foolish to make plans for what might never come to pass.”

“Oh absolutely,” Fingon agreed. He bit off a chunk of bread, chewed and said with his mouth half-full, “What’s the first thing that you’ll do?”

“Sleep, I think. Stay abed for a year, at the least.” _I’m humouring you_ , said Maedhros’ level, bantering tone but his eyes were still wide and perplexed.

“I was going to say ‘explore the east,’ but if you’re going to be in bed-”

“I said  _sleep_. See my brothers. Properly; no sniping, no orders, no bitterness. Rebuild Himring, as a town and not a fortress.” He paused and helped himself to the remains of Fingon’s breakfast. Not looking up he added, warily, “Go east with you.”

“And see an oliphant!”

“You’ve fought dragons and ridden eagles."

“Yes, and never seen an oliphant.”

“If my brothers had the silmarils, the oath might allow- I don’t know. It will always be a factor. You were right to press me on that.”

Fingon, who  _had_ fought dragons and ridden eagles, was not easily daunted. “If it comes to it, we’ll take one of the damn jewels with us.”

“Thingol-”

“Is a stubborn old goat, I did not lie, but not half so stubborn as you and certainly not so clever. Nor can he be immune to my many charms. We’ll find a way to persuade him. Together. Be it through diplomacy, blackmail, crying to his wife-”

“-or a seductive dance.” With a toss of his head, Maedhros was the same lovely boy that had charmed half the court in Tirion and Fingon at least would have given him his heart’s desire upon a platter. “You’re right. We can do this.” He stood and pushed his plate aside, drawing Fingon up with him, hand in sticky hand. The fire was banked but it would burn the long night through.

“We have a war to win,” he said and both of them believed it.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on tumblr [here](http://thelioninmybed.tumblr.com), come say hi!


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